National Forest 'Roadless' Areas
Petition process under the Bush Administration
One of the first acts of the Bush Administration when it took office was to suspend the Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2001. The administration subsequently and consistently sought to undermine efforts to secure protection for these wild lands.
Defying widespread public and scientific opinion, the administration ultimately replaced the rule in 2005 with a process under which state governors would have to petition the Secretary of Agriculture to prevent development of the roadless areas in their states. The rule provided no guarantee the Secretary would accept the petition.
The Bush rule was immediately challenged by several national conservation groups. Meanwhile, to ensure the South's roadless areas would be protected no matter what, SELC urged the governors in our region to file petitions seeking full protection for all national forest roadless areas in their states.
In 2005, then-Virginia Governor Mark Warner was the first in the nation to file a petition. (Gov. Tim Kaine subsequently sent a letter in support of that petition.) North Carolina Governor Mike Easley and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford followed, as did several western governors.
In September 2006, Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco threw out the Bush Administration's rule, and reinstated the 2001 rule. She found that the government had violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, and enjoined the Forest Service “from taking any further action contrary to the [2001] Roadless Rule without undertaking environmental analysis consistent with this opinion.”
Judge Laporte's ruling, assuming it stands, may render the state processes unnecessary since it reinstates the protections of the 2001 rule, which is what the states asked for in their petitions. However, the Bush Administration and the timber industry have appealed her ruling.
Passage by Congress of the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2007 would end once and for all the legal fight over these lands and safeguard them from attacks by hostile administrations in the future.
